Nuji launches as “Instagram meets Instapaper” for social shopping

With the holiday shopping season now in full swing, you might be looking for some inspiration for your gift list. Nuji, a social shopping recommendation service which has just left closed beta, might be just the ticket.

Nuji is a way for users to create and share a list of items they’re interested in buying and get social shopping recommendations by following users with similar tastes. Amazon-goes-social, if you like, but for all retailers. The team is betting on social recommendations being far more appealing to users than the automated suggestions provided by services like Amazon.

The result is a bit like “Instagram meets Instapaper”, but for shopping. Here’s how it works: you’re in a shop and you see something you’d like to buy in the future, or simply just like. You scan the barcode using Nuji’s iPhone app and the item is added to your profile. If you’re browsing online, a bookmarklet allows you to do the same thing.

As you tag items you like, your profile fills up with pictures of things you like, defining you by your taste. You followers get to see what you’re interested in and can ‘reshare’ your selections with others, helping to mark you out as a influential Nuji user.

Nuji plans to monetize by offering relevant shopping deals to users based on their interests, although this feature hasn’t been rolled out yet. Photo tagging will soon be added to the iPhone app, allowing you to keep a record of real-world items you like even if they don’t have a barcode.

Based in London, Nuji was founded in February this year and the startup was a Seedcamp 2010 winner. You can sign up to Nuji here and download the iPhone app at this iTunes link.